Every time I hear people - including myself - complain about some aspect of life in Malaysia, I think of the sign that Lexie Hayden, the best advertising traffic manager I ever had the pleasure and privilege to work with, kept taped on her office door: 'Are you part of the problem? Or part of the solution?'

And embarrassingly often I have to admit to myself that, whether through idleness, expedience or feeling that as a foreigner it's none of my business or responsibility, I feel I'm by definition part of the problem.

Sure, I sometimes express my complaints or criticism per medium of this column that malaysiakini generously permits me; and it occasionally helps me feel, however fatuously, that I'm capable of being part of the solution.

But the people I criticise - the idle, incompetent and corrupt in positions of power - clearly couldn't care less. And why should they? They're well aware I'm only here temporarily, either for as long as they're prepared to tolerate my presence, or until my Malaysian wife becomes totally disenchanted with being back here. And then I'll be off to become part of some other country's problem, solution or both.

Unlike those stalwarts who are clearly committed to sticking around for the duration as part of Malaysia's solution, like Rocky, Jeff and their fellow balls-and-all, real-name bloggers; Steven, Premesh and the rest of the magnificent malaysiakini crew; and guerilla journalists like Citizen Nades and Terence Fernandez of The Sun.

Just as powerfully part of the solution, of course, are indefatigably outspoken opposition politicians like Lim Kit Siang, Karpal Singh and the resurgent Anwar Ibrahim. And then there are all the NGOs fighting the good fight for honesty, transparency and equity for all Malaysians.

But such leading lights, as able, energetic and determined as they are and as fast as their numbers and support may be growing, can't ever hope or prove to be the solution to every problem. What it will take is for every Malaysian to decide what side of the problem/solution divide he or she is on, and whether to contribute or not accordingly.

Doing a little

The problem with individual action, of course, is that many of us, as indignant and even enraged as we are by the prevailing situation, feel utterly impotent in the face of the seemingly overwhelming powers of repression and greed ranged against us, and consider ourselves ill-equipped to tackle the multitudinous problems we face.

But as Confucius is supposed to have said, 'A thousand-mile journey begins with a single step'. The great British statesman Edmund Burke expressed much the same sentiment, "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."

I'm reminded here of the guy whose name I regrettably forget, who made it his business to fill as many potholes as he could last January, on roads that the Johor Bahru city council had failed to fix. If any Malaysian was part of the nation's solution he was, or perhaps still is, in his stubborn if eccentric fashion. And those motorists who reportedly scorned and abused him for having the temerity to get in their way in the process of doing them a favour were part of the perennial problem.

But we don't have to be actively against progress to be part of the problem, or even outright reactionary, just apathetic. Or utterly pathetic, like someone I recently heard loudly ending her conversation with the proprietor of a coffee shop about the evils of the current government with the sentiment that "I couldn't care less what they do as long as we can still make money."

I've nothing against money per se, you understand. As little of it as I've managed to accumulate, I have a healthy respect for the stuff.

Even the much-misquoted Christian evangelist St Paul, who supposedly declared that "Money is the root of all evil" didn't say that at all. What he said was "The love of money is the root of all evil." And certainly the love, not to say lust, for money is the root of many evils in present-day Malaysia and the world at large.

Making the switch

So a good many of us could switch from being part of the problem to part of the solution simply by learning to love money just a shade less, or at least less shadily and to the exclusion of all else.

Even a slight slackening in the system of secret deals and obscene 'commissions' between the politically-connected and their profiteering cronies would help alleviate the problem of shoddy, over-priced public and private developments.

And if even a few more local councils started concentrating less on helping themselves and more on serving their communities, we might start to see a solution to the descent of so many of our suburbs into a shambles.

It might also benefit us greatly to have an Anti-Corruption Commission whose activities are independent of the very government it should be investigating, and whose head is himself above suspicion.

ACA director-general Zulkipli Mat Noor is the subject of a damning official report by one of his senior operatives, Mohamad Ramli Manan, based on allegations that surfaced as long ago as 1997. (In an interview with the New Straits Times published today, Zulkipli dismissed the allegations as "baseles".)

Of course not all of us have the time, energy or wherewithal to investigate problem individuals or organisations, or even the will to agitate for solutions.

But the more of us who elect to become part of the solution, if only in the way we live our ordinary, everyday lives and conduct our financial affairs, the sooner we'll find ourselves in a position to outnumber, out-voice and out-vote those who opt to remain, by either design or default, part of Malaysia's problem.